iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 01/04/2026

Today is Apple’s 50th anniversary, but it’s also April Fools Day, so I’m wearing a T-shirt that commemorates the 50th anniversary of CERN. I mention this here because I doubt anyone will notice in real life. 😄

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 20/02/2026

Here’s a picture I took of the Space Needle a few months ago when it had some holiday lights. I think the lights glowing in the fog makes it look like an Olympic torch.

The top half of the Seattle Space Needle against a foggy night sky. The top spire has strings of lights going down to the wider part below it, making a cone of light. The fog scatters the light so there’s a kind of glowing halo around the cone.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 20/02/2026

Every so often my Apple Watch tells me I have low or very low walking steadiness. But I walk around a fair bit and don’t feel like I’m in imminent danger of falling — at least not on smooth ground. It doesn’t feel like a risk to get up.

Apple Watch screenshot showing the notification, ‘Very Low Walking Steadiness: Your Walking Steadiness continues to be very low and you may be at high risk of falling in the next 12 months.’

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 29/01/2026

So battle scars, such shiny omg, wow! The loop on the back for attaching it to a chain is squished, so it might need to be repaired.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 11/01/2026

I got a perfect sleep score! The trick is to be tired from not sleeping well the night before, going to bed late enough over the holidays that going to sleep at 00:57 is earlier than average, and not having an extra cup of tea before bed, so you don’t need to get up to pee much.

Apple Watch screenshot showing a sleep score 100 ‘Excellent’ on Jan 11

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 05/01/2026

Just kidding. Here’s a Steller’s Jay or two and some chickadees.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 04/01/2026

It's the eleventh day of Christmas! I don't have any sandpipers piping, but check out the pipes on these dark-eyed juncos.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 03/01/2026

It’s the tenth day of Christmas! Have some squirrels a-leaping.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 02/01/2026

It’s the ninth day of Christmas! I don’t have any maids a-milking, so have some more birds. Here’s a male house finch, his side chickadee, and a dark-eyed junco.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 01/01/2026

It’s the eighth day of Christmas! You get a break efrom birds, but only after a retrospective of some previous birds. Here’s a golden-crowned sparrow, some house finches, some dark-eyed juncos, and a squirrel. Happy New Year!

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 31/12/2025

It's the seventh day of Christmas! Have some more birds. This time there is some twitter drama between dark-eyed juncos and chickadees.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 30/12/2025

It’s the sixth day of Christmas! Have another bird. It’s a common starling, but it’s probably not named for the fact that much of its plumage looks like bright stars against a dark sky! In fact, ‘starling’ is probably cognate with another bird, ‘tern’. I had no idea they looked like that. Neat!

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 29/12/2025

It’s the fifth day of Christmas! There is some debate over whether the gifts on this day were actually birds. Anyway, have a squirrel’s ring.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 28/12/2025

It’s the fourth day of Christmas! Have some more birds. (Two or three different Steller’s jays, a dark-eyed junco, and a golden-crowned sparrow)

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 27/12/2025

It’s the third day of Christmas! Have some birds (a suspected house finch and a dark-eyed junco). I know you might have been expecting six birds today, but I’m not made of birds, you know.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 26/12/2025

It’s the second day of Christmas! Have three birds of two different species (dark-eyed juncos and I think a chickadee) It might be the same junco twice; I haven’t had time to look for one that definitely has two.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 26/12/2025

According to this song: youtu.be/p_KCe-gdvE0, if you sleep on Christmas, those hours of sleep are worth thousands.

Screenshot of an Apple Watch showing the time asleep on December 25 as 6233 hours, 20 minutes

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 25/12/2025

It’s the first day of Christmas. Have a bird. (I think this one is a golden-crowned sparrow.)

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 24/12/2025

Well here’s a relationship with Jesus I wasn’t expecting this Christmas.

Duolingo notification saying “New like from Jesus: Seeing all the lessons you’ve done today is inspiring 💫”

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 20/10/2025

I’ve known these existed for ages, but didn’t see the point of having a stand for my Apple Watch charger until recently, when my charger fell off the narrow end table one too many times. It looks so cute! I think the watch band in the colours of the original Apple logo (but wrong order) adds to it.

A small plastic stand shaped like an original Macintosh computer, with an Apple Watch charger in the back and a frame around where the screen would be in the front, with a slot to put the Apple Watch in between.

An Apple Watch installed in the charger, with the Apple Watch screen where the Mac screen would be showing the time and date, making the whole thing look like a tiny Macintosh 128K, complete with an indentation that looks like a floppy disk drive. On either side of the tiny Mac, the Pride wristband is visible.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 09/10/2025

Thanks, iOS 26, for screening this call from a weirdo. 😂 (It was actually someone I’d just talked to from a recruiting firm whose name sounds a little like weirdo, I guess)

Screenshot of the iPhone incoming call screen with caller ‘Maybe: Angelo’ and reason for calling, ‘Oh, hi, Angelo, this is, uh, from a weirdo, and just now we had a…’

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 09/10/2025

The new macOS/iOS version of Seddit is out! In this version, if you have voices in multiple languages selected, it will detect the language of the first post or comment by each user and give them a voice that speaks that language. So they’ll be pronounced correctly. apps.apple.com/us/app/seddi...

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 02/10/2025

Yesterday we went to an event with Mary Roach for the second time this year. Her new book, Replaceable You, is about replacing various body parts. At the signing table afterwards, she was giving out little packets of tissues, saying, “I’m a tissue donor”. 😆

A small packet of tissues, with a sticker on it saying “Replaceable You” and “Mary Roach” with the art from the book cover — a face made up of multiple disconnected features (six eyes, three mouths, blobs of skin and hair)

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 11/09/2025

They’re coming to take me away, ha-haa! 🎶

Duolingo screenshot showing a Japanese phrase that literally translates to, ‘Yes, the white coats are here.’

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 23/08/2025

We saw James Dempsey live last night (my third time since moving to the US — that’s a perk I didn’t expect! Before then I only saw him at WWDC 2004) and tonight Joey (who has never even done Apple development) was rocking out to his album while cooking dinner. 😃

Handwritten set list with:
Hello World
I Love View
Optional Song
Liquid Glass
Beautiful Mutable
Right to the Metal
Auto Layout
Almost Dropped
Liki
One More Thing

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 18/08/2025

Well that was quick! The new iOS version is still in review, but a new macOS version of Seddit, 1.1, is available now, with new sounds settings, a setting to not read out URLs, and a ‘random from previous subreddits’ setting for automatically loading more posts. apps.apple.com/us/app/seddi...

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 13/08/2025

Just released a new version of my iOS/macOS app Lifetiler, with pinch-to-zoom and improved large text and VoiceOver support. 😊 apps.apple.com/us/app/lifet...

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 23/07/2025

Yesterday I went to Chihuly Garden and Glass, where I saw a demo of how to enable tinted mode in liquid glass.

A man in front of a glass furnace holding a metal pipe with a gob of molten glass on the end, rolling the glass in shards of coloured glass

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 19/07/2025

Anyway I was at Microsoft again today and was happy to see they at least have a Swift room.

a ceiling light shining through the word ‘SWIFT’ frosted onto a window

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 03/07/2025

Just noticed that the App Store Connect app can make cute little promotional animations. apps.apple.com/us/app/lifet...

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 12/06/2025

Oh gosh, I have seen this in race dropdowns all over the place, but this particular site also has (United States of America) after only the Nonbinary gender option. Only Americans can be nonbinary? This should be on genders.wtf

A dropdown titled 'Please select your gender' with the options 'Man', 'Nonbinary (United States of America)', 'Prefer not to respond', and 'Woman'.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 12/06/2025

Does anyone know why the race dropdowns on many job application sites say (United States of America) after each race? I get that sometimes such terms mean different things in different countries, but I can't even decline to answer without also identifying as (United States of America).

Dropdown including the options 'American Indian or Alaska Native (United States of America)', 'Asian (United States of America)' 'Black or African American (United States of America)' and 'I do not wish to answer (United States of America)'

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 05/05/2025

May the fourth be with you!

Me watching a TV that’s showing the title sequence for Star Trek: Voyager. I’m wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Star Wars #1 fan’ and has a picture of the Starship Enterprise.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 28/04/2025

Just hanging out at Deep Dish Swift watching James Dempsey and the Breakpoints rehearse. 😍

A group of people around a table playing guitars, one guy with a sax, and James Dempsey singing and gesticulating

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 28/04/2025

Look who I met at Deep Dish Swift!

Me posing next to Duo, the Duolingo mascot.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 27/01/2025

I had been looking for tiny bookshelves or some way to store my smaller books (mostly pocket dictionaries) when I realised a clear plastic CD rack could do the job. I can see everything even if I put tinier books in the space behind the small books. Here it is from both sides (banana for scale).

Open-topped rectangular clear plastic case showing the spines of le Robert & Collins dictionnaire anglais: les pratiques mini, Collins Gem Italiano, Norstedts Engelska Fickordbok, Le petit livre des contrepétries, Harrap’s Grammaire Espagnole, Collins Gem Japanese, Kinderlieder, Le pornithorynque est un salopare, ANWB Engels, Lonely Planet Fast Talk French and Fast Talk Italian, The Mini Oxford School Thesaurus, Lonely Planet Lingue Baltiche, Collins German, Hippocrene Concise Dictionary Nepali-English/English-Nepali, A Dictionary of Bristle, Deutsch Français Italiano Rumantsch 🇨🇭, and an English-Greek/Greek-English dictionary. There is a banana on top which covers about half the length.

Open-topped clear plastic case showing small books ranging from about 3cm to about 17cm in height, arranged in front of the fore edges of some other books. The books include Wienerisch, Flaubert Dictionnaire des idées reçues, Le plus petit Larousse, Poucet Français-Anglais, Micro dictionnaire Larousse, Fränggisch’ Wördderbichla, plus de 160 phrases pour s’amuser à bien articuler, The Pocket Guide to Scottish Words, Frankisch, Wörterbuch Österreichisch-Deutsch, Rousseau extraits, and Collins Gem School Irish Dictionary. There is a banana on top which covers about half the length.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 09/01/2025

I continue to unpack my boxes and randomly decorate with what I find. By the way, did you know that it’s a lot of fun to throw empty moving boxes down stairs?

A giant red foam hand in a pointing gesture with ‘Geek territory’ written on it, attached to the handrail of some stairs with some hanging coat hooks such that it points up the stairs.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 03/01/2025

Mine is realistic, at least.

Tweet from Merriam Webster: Take a screenshot of this GIF, and whichever new word you land on is
YOUR word for 2025.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
The word in my screenshot: dillydally

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 18/12/2024

A friend suggested a scarf, so I added a few that I’d unpacked but hadn’t found a home for yet.

The same tree as in the replied-to post, but now with a red and white Swiss scarf around the ‘neck’ of the tree (just under the googly eyes) and a blue and orange Fermilab scarf reaching partway around the bottom.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 17/12/2024

While I was in Austria I bought something edible in the shape of a Christmas tree each year (starting with a tree-shaped chocolate hanging over a pile of moving boxes.) Now I live with Joey, who has a proper fake tree. As I unpack my boxes I’m decorating it with the things I find.

A Christmas tree decorated with normal shiny red and gold baubles, plus some fake flowers, a gold ribbon, an Earth bauble, and some Vienna U-Bahn baubles. On top of the tree is a Santa hat, and just underneath that are two medium-sized googly eyes.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 08/12/2024

Don’t you hate it when your plastic containers don’t quite match your lids? (I just unpacked my ‘kitchen’ box, which was mostly mugs but had a few other bits and pieces I didn’t manage to give away before moving)

A rounded rectangular plastic container about big enough for a single meal, next to a much smaller round reusable yogurt container lid.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 30/11/2024

It’s here! Now I get to open 37 boxes of presents from myself!

Moving boxes piled up 3–4 boxes high, on either side of a narrow clear patch of floor leading to a door.

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Angela Brett @angelastic.com · 29/11/2024

It's my first Thanksgiving in the US! (Previously I have only celebrated it at an Italian friend's place in France, and in an Irish restaurant in Austria.) We celebrated it with a friend's family, and they served turkeys made out of fruit.

A turkey design made out of pieces of fruit arranged on a plate, with half a pear for the body and head, half-blueberries for the eyes, pieces of carrot for the legs, and a fan of (from inside to outside) red grapes, strawberry slices, blueberries, golden kiwifruit slices, and orange slices surrounding the pear to make the tail.

A turkey design made out of pieces of fruit arranged on a plate, with half a pear for the body and head, half-blueberries for the eyes, pieces of strawberry for the nose, mouth, and legs, and a fan of (from inside to outside) strawberry slices, blueberries, green grapes, more blueberries, and golden kiwifruit slices, surrounding the pear to make the tail.

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